SECTOR SKILLS COUNCILSUKFIET, SEPTEMBER 2015ROBIN TODD & MICHAEL WOODGATE

SECTOR SKILLS COUNCILS: CAN THEY ENHANCE EMPLOYER ENGAGEMENT IN SKILLS DEVELOPMENT SYSTEMS?

WHAT DO EMPLOYERS WANT?

Employers want people to do their jobs well.

Job performance is related to how people are:

– Recruited- availability of potential recruits; awareness of opportunities; ability and suitability of recruits; attractiveness of workplaces and competence of the people doing the recruiting.

– Trained- what needs to be learnt, why does it need to be learnt, how is it going to be learnt and who is going to teach it.

– Managed- ongoing practice, mentoring and supportive line management including performance management and an appropriate approach to leading and developing people.

1. They are required to pay for training or take on trainees because of regulation and legislation i.e. for compliance reasons.

2. They feel that they ought to because it’s the sort of thing a ‘good’ employer does and it demonstrates that they care about, and invest in, their people i.e. for CSR reasons.

4. They recognise that there is a genuine, bottom-line business benefit to them of investing in the skills and training of their employees i.e. for business reasons.

3. They are offered ‘free’ training funded by government or some other third party source i.e. for affordability and opportunistic reasons.

4 REASONS WHY EMPLOYERS TRAIN THEIR STAFF

SKILLS SUPPLY, DEMAND AND UTILISATION

Just as, at a firm level, productivity relies on the 3 elements of recruitment, training and management, so at a policy level, effective skills development relies on:

– Skills Supply- the training courses and qualifications which are offered and delivered by public and private training institutions, on-the-job and by firms themselves.

– Skills Demand- the level, number and type of skills required by employers across industry sectors.

– Skills Utilisation- how employers utilise the skills of their employees within the workplace to drive their business goals and organisational performance.

“traditional English skills policies have only ever really addressed the supply side and have ignored problems bound up with deficiencies in the underlying levels of demand for skill within the economy, and also the issue of how effectively skills are deployed within the workplace.”

Keep (2015)

• Widening policy-makers’ perspective to encompass demand and utilisation moves is beyond a simplistic focus on ‘employer-led’ supply systems to questions about the purpose of skills and its role in enhancing productivity.

• Stiglitz & Greenwald (2014) stress that the productivity gains generated by effective learning are “the most important determinant of increases in standards of living.”

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SKILLS DEMAND AND SUPPLY

HIGH PERFORMANCE WORKING PRACTICESEmployee

InvolvementSkills Acquisition

Motivational Practices

• Task discretion • Induction • Organisational performance-related pay

• Task variety • Work shadowing • Individual performance-related pay

• Problem solving teams

• Off-the-job training

• Formal employee consultation procedures

• Descriptions • On-the-job training

• Formal discipline and dismissal procedures

• Project teams • Training plan • Flexible benefits

• Team briefings • Annual budget • Flexible working

• Suggestion scheme • Annual performance review

• Equal opportunity policy

• Staff survey • Evaluation of training

WHAT ARE SECTOR SKILLS COUNCILS?

Three common functional themes:

– Gathering accurate and timely Labour Market Information in order to understand the quantitative and qualitative skills needs of the sector;

– Agreeing the nature and content of the standards and qualifications required within the sector;

– Working with training providers to articulate the skills needs of employers within the sector so that supply is aligned with employer demand.

UK SECTOR SKILLS COUNCILS 25 SSCs established in 2002 and 2003 covering 90% of

the UK workforce.

Each SSC had 4 core strategic goals:

i. To reduce skills gaps and shortages

ii. To improve productivity, business and public sector performance

iii. To increase the opportunities to develop the productivity and skills of everyone in their sector

iv. To improve learning supply through the development of apprenticeships, higher education and national occupational standards.

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

1. Origins of the SSC

2. Composition and Make-Up of the Industry Sector

3. SSC Leadership and Nature of Engagement with Employers

4. Access to Sustainable Financing

SSCS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES- 5 LESSONS 1. Be mindful of significant differences between countries’ labour markets and between sectors within these labour markets

2. Take account of context and utilise existing employer-led bodies wherever possible. Where these don’t already exist ask why they don’t exist.

3. Be clear from the start about the purpose of the SSC. Don’t overload SSCs with multiple objectives or see them as vehicles for delivering government targets.

4. Good quality LMI which employers can agree on provides a strong starting point for SSC action.

5. Be realistic from the start about how SSCs will be funded

THE ROLE OF THEORIES OF CHANGE IN BRINGING ABOUT BENEFICIAL AND SUSTAINABLE CHANGE IN THE LABOUR MARKETRON TUCKUKFIET 2015

Do we understand well enough how to bring about real change in the labour market?

DO WE HAVE ENOUGH EVIDENCE?

TVET reform tends to be based on assumptions about effective levers of change

Example: development of NQFs drives up quality of TVET and improves access and mobility

Theory of change methodology makes us look at assumptions and evidence

Can challenge simplistic ideas such as that better teacher training will lead to improved learning attainment

Many other factors (home, school and wider institutional environment) are also critical

ELEMENTS OF A THEORY OF CHANGE

Impact – the broad ‘social good’ e.g. improved learning

Outcome – change in system/social conditions that should create the impact e.g. better quality schools.

Output – change brought about by inputs that contributes to achieving the outcome e.g. better trained teachers

Input – an activity designed to bring about an output, e.g. training of teachers

Inputs, outputs, outcomes and impact link together in a results chain that illustrates expected cause and effect

ASSUMPTIONS AND EVIDENCE

Next part is the most important

Articulate the assumptions in the results chain, e.g. if we do A, then this will lead to B – and B (along with C and D) will contribute to E

Then ask: is there any evidence to support the assumption(s)?

If there is no evidence – or if the evidence is weak – build evidence-gathering mechanisms into the design of the initiative

Challenge of getting robust evidence in time to modify theory of change and implementation strategy

WHAT IS CURRENT PRACTICE?

Example of NQFs

Instrument for the development, classification and recognition of skills, knowledge and competencies along a continuum of agreed levels

Indicates the comparability of different qualifications and how one can progress from one level to another, within and across occupations or industrial sectors

Sometimes ‘NQF implementation’ implies reforms beyond the framework itself such as strengthening of quality assurance

WHAT IS AN NQF INTENDED TO ACHIEVE?

Establish national standards of knowledge, skills and wider competencies to ensure the relevance of qualifications to national economic and social needs

Resolve the diversity of sectors and improve articulation and comparability between qualifications across sectors

Establish national quality standards and systems for QA of providers, programmes, delivery and assessment

Establish clear progression pathways and facilitate procedures for access to learning and transfer and recognition of learning

Provide a means to benchmark qualifications nationally and internationally

WHAT IS AN NQF INTENDED TO ACHIEVE?

What is the intended impact (broad social good)?

What are the problems that need to be addressed?

Implications are that

a) Diversity and inadequate comparability create barriers to learning to detriment of learners and labour market

b) Progression pathways aren’t clear

c) Training/qualification systems aren’t accessible enough

Impact – Learners are able to progress through their chosen pathways without unnecessary difficulties

WHAT IS AN NQF INTENDED TO ACHIEVE?

But which pathways are a problem?

If we don’t define the problem, we can’t find solution or measure success

Baseline data on selected progression routes + definition of intended impact

Then work back to required outcomes and outputs

RESULTS CHAIN

INTERROGATING THE THEORY

Is the theory plausible? Does it include all the important factors?

What assumptions are being made? What evidence is there to support these assumptions?

Which are the weakest links in the chain?

What evidence should we be planning to collect?

Clear, however, that if you work back from the impact that NQFs seem to be designed to achieve, the answer isn’t just an NQF

Does this also apply to sector skills councils, NVQs, training funds…?

SKILLS AND CAPACITYWHAT DOES LEARNING NEED TO LOOK LIKE TODAY TO PREPARE THE WORKFORCE OF 2030?DR. MURIEL DUNBARUKFIET 2015

What does learning need to look like today to prepare the workforce of 2030?

TODAY’S LABOUR MARKET

Supply Demand

Jobless growth in some regions

Decline in medium-skilled, routine jobs

rising unemployment alongside skill shortages

Low female participation

Growth of labour supply slowing

INFLUENCES ON THE LABOUR MARKET OF TOMORROW

PREPARING TO ENTER THE LABOURMARKET IN 2030

Goal

HOW CAN THEY BE HELPED?

Develop more targetedstrategies for bringingyoung women with STEMskills into the labour force

Include and assess softskills for employabilityand trainability

Increase the number ofsecondary schoolgraduates with STEMsubjects

WHAT MORE DO WE NEED TO DO?

Focus strongly on urban labour markets at thesame time as supporting the growth of agribusinesses

Achieve international recognition ofqualifications

Require all training institutions to conform toquality standards and generate income

Invest in high quality employment services

…….. AND WE ALSO NEED TO

Increase investment in 2nd chance learning

BUT WE ALSO NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT:

Technology-enabled learning for skills

Effective collaboration models for SMEs and the informal sector

Strategies for increasing uptake by girls of STEM subjects and STEM occupations

Effectively implementing Recognition of Prior Learning at scale

www.camb-ed.com

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